Stripping reconstructed states of their governments and putting them under military occupation for over a decade for starters. Lots of people came home to destroyed homes, occupation, looting, and in some cases worse.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/plantation/sf_myths.html#a
In brief: "What military occupation?"
And destroyed homes, looting etc. is a product of the ACW's less nice side and the chaotic aftermath of such a thing, not Reconstruction policies.
Again, state offices are not going to come back in some areas for another decade. And sometimes the price of democracy is dealing with someone else's elected officials that you do not like. Try lobbying them in DC...
"By mid-1868, Congress readmitted representatives from six states, and then the remainder complied with the act's terms and were readmitted in 1870."
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Readmission+of+states
Five years until the last are readmitted to Congress. Five years. After a brutal, emotional, extreme civil war.
I'd have to check on state houses, but I would wager they came back at the same time if not sooner.
OTL they were stopped from some of their worst excesses though their proposals certainly went far enough, they nearly managed to oust Johnson for heaven's sakes. A living Lincoln will have a much lighter hand, and as Germany taught us in OTL via the Marshall Plan having a helping hand during a rebuilding process can turn a former enemy into a helpful partner.
OTL their "worst excesses" are myths. And nearly ousting Johnson - that's the worst you can think of?
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/pfc01
Obviously we'd have to check the other ten states to see how they compare to Texas, but it's rather interesting to compare the myth to the reality even in just this one case
Talent often thrives even in adversity. Many of these guys had resources and the brains to make the best out of what was given to them, they also had local respect and became the local leaders who could capitalize on whatever came their way.
But that they were free men, able to go about their lives and flounder or prosper by their own efforts, and in multiple cases achieve national office is hardly the result of the grinding hand of Radical Republican oppression.
The bare minimum that kind the of oppressive Reconstruction so often talked about and so little supported would be to see these men stripped of their rights as citizens and/or imprisoned. Not governors, senators, representatives, owners of railroads, and other occupations far from the bottom of the social or economic totem pole.
Yet, if I was to pick a Confederate general at random, I would bet you that the only ones who ended in poverty were those who "failed at business" or occasionally at farming - very occasionally.
http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1112
Now, Confederates were disenfranchised briefly in Tennessee - but that was by a Tennessee measure, not Stevens and his peers oppressing the poor South from Washington.
I disagree, the better way to have done so would be to allow states to rebuild via a Lincoln model with less pressure and find a way to greatly increase black participation in politics. The harder you push the more resistance you will have. Things will take generations to change regardless of circumstances, but I think using a lighter touch in 1865-1868 it may take 2 generations instead of 4 to get closer to a Civil Rights Act like 1964.
Except that the only way you're getting greater black participation in politics is stepping hard on the elements of the South that fought bloodily after the war to render blacks exercising their rights as citizens a short way to trouble - or even death.
You are not getting it by basically saying that the South is free to exclude them without even token efforts at interference.
And in this interests of discussion, I'm going to request that if you dispute any of the sources I have linked that you provide some of your own to read in response.